UK passes emergency legislation to save the last British factory that makes steel take control of the struggling plant in Chinese possession | Mint

The UK approved an emergency law on Saturday to stop the last British factory that can make steel from scratch so that the government can take control of the struggling British steel plant in Chinese possession. The site in the north of England faced the impending closure and Prime Minister Keir Starmer said urgent action is needed to prevent his furnaces from going out and saving the remaining of the steel industry in the United Kingdom. During a rare weekend session, Parliament approved the legislation without opposition to take over the management of the Scunthorpe site, which employs several thousand people, and produce steel of great importance to British industries, including construction and rail transport. The government has seen its possible closure as a risk of Britain’s long-term economic security, given the decline in the British once robust steel industry. While MPs debated in parliament, Starmer made a line to the region where he told steel workers that steel workers met in a nearby town hall that the measure was “in the national interest”. He said the ‘fairly unprecedented’ move means that the government can secure ‘a future for steel’ in Britain. “Most importantly, we have control over the site, we can make the decisions about what happens, and that means the ovens will stay,” he said. This came after protests at the plant and reported that workers had stopped the managers of the Chinese owners of the company on Saturday morning who had access to the most important areas of the Steelworks. According to the newspaper Times, British steel workers saw a ‘delegation of Chinese drivers’ trying to enter critical parts of the works. According to police, officers attended the scene “after a suspected violation of the peace,” but no arrests were made. Nationalization ‘Probable Option’ that faces nationalization questions, Jonathan Reynolds, business and trade secretary, told Parliament that state-owned “remains on the table” and possibly the ‘likely option’. But he said that the scope of the Saturday legislation is more limited – it “does not transfer ownership to the government,” he explained, saying it would have to be handled at a later stage. Ministers said no private company was willing to invest in the plant. The Chinese owners said it is no longer financially viable to manage the two ovens on the site, where up to 2700 jobs are at risk. Jingye bought British Steel in 2020, saying it invested more than £ 1.2bn ($ 1.5 billion) to maintain operations, but lost about £ 700,000 a day. Reynolds said “the effective market value of this business is zero,” and that Jingye wanted to maintain the operation in the UK, but provided it with China from China to keep it going. The Labor Government came under fire from the opposition conservative party for dealing with the negotiations and faced calls from some left-wing politicians to fully nationalize the plant. Reynolds said the government was trying to buy raw materials to keep the ovens going with “no losses at all for Jingye”, but with resistance. Instead, Jingye demanded that the UK transfer hundreds of millions of pounds to them, without any conditions to transfer the money and potentially other assets to China immediately, “he said. “They also refused a condition to hold the ovens.” Saturday’s legislation allowed criminal sanctions and provided the government powers to take over assets if managers did not comply with the instructions to keep the ovens open. Trump tariffs left for their Easter holidays on Tuesday and would only return to parliament after April 22. MPs last sat on a Saturday recall of parliament at the beginning of the Falkland War between Britain and Argentina in 1982. Scunthorpe in the north of England is the last virgin steel plant – which produced steel of RAW, rather than to be again. year. British Steel said US President Donald Trump’s rates on the sector are partly the blame for the problems of the Scunthorpe plant. However, the fierce competition of cheaper Asian steel has had the pressure on Europe’s beleaguered industry over the past few years. British Steel took its roots as far back as the industrial revolution, but took shape in 1967 when the Labor government nationalized the industry, which employed nearly 270,000 people at the time. First published: 12 Apr 2025, 22:36 IST